Natural environment and open spaces

Allotment gardening provides a wide range of benefits to communities and the environment.

Apart from providing low cost food, they also provide valuable recreational opportunities involving healthy activity and social contacts. Allotments are significant to our green spaces and provide habitats for many forms of wildlife.

Allotments have evolved through a rich and varied history of social and economic change, the most notable being the 2nd World War where the public were encouraged to 'Grow their own Greens' and 'Dig for Britain'. The first legislative reforms date back to the Enclosures Act of 1845.

Today, the Council has a statutory requirement to provide allotments for the public.

Taking on an allotment plot is not all hard work; it can have many advantages, providing fresh home grown vegetables, fruit and flowers for you and your family, free from artificial additives and at a fraction of that you would have expected to pay in a supermarket or greengrocer.

There is also the social side, meeting new friends with similar interests and enabling you to enjoy a healthy outdoor life with gentle exercise and a place to relax and unwind.

Allotments - A Plot Holder's Guide - link to external website is available on the Department for Communities and Local Government website, which may contain more useful information.

If you are interested in hiring an allotment, please identify your preferred site and contact the appropriate allotment secretary.

To help us respond correctly and promptly, please provide the following information:

1. Where is the encampment?

2. How many vehicles there are?

3. When you first saw the encampment

We will investigate the circumstances based on the information you provide and may ask you for more information if you have left contact details. We must first find out who owns the land which can take up to a week.

Once we know the owner of the land we will take the appropriate actions to move Gypsies & Travellers on as peacefully and quickly as possible and may instruct bailiffs to undertake an initial visit. Before deciding on the next course of action, the Council must consider the general health, welfare and children's education and ensure that the Human Rights Act 1998 has been fully complied with.

The average time for an unauthorised encampment between the initial bailiff’s visit and for Gypsies & Travellers to leave the site is three weeks.

If the land is privately owned it is the landowner’s responsibility to take action. If the landowner fails to remove an unauthorised encampment, we will consider taking action requiring them to do so.

Once vehicles have left an unauthorised encampment on the Highway or other Council owned land, it will be inspected and any necessary work undertaken.